The World

A Vatican delegation has ended two weeks of talks with the Czechoslovak government on filling the country's 11 vacant bishoprics, and discussions will resume in Rome soon, the official Ceteka news agency reported from Prague. The negotiations dealing with church-state relations in Czechoslovakia, considered by the Vatican as among the worst in Eastern Europe, came as Catholics around the country signed a petition calling for greater religious freedom. No new bishops have been named since 1973 because the government insists that the church leaders belong to the state-sponsored clergy organization, Pacem in Terris, which the Vatican sees as a tool of the Communist government.